My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.

I have no idea how much this idea plays into tea-bagger ideology, and strongly suspect that the basis is instead largely racist anger about having a black president. However, it's also clear that the US has a large number of people who are deeply invested in the ideas of "individual autonomy and self-sufficiency ", and I have encountered such people on all sides of the political spectrum.

This belief interests me in large part because it is so absolutely foreign to my thinking. Rugged self-reliance has never made any sense to me. As a happy urbanite, I am well aware that I depend upon a multitude of others to provide me with clean water, easily accessible food, safe and well-lit roads, and a host of other services that I am exceedingly grateful for and would have great difficulty living without. From my PoV, the sort of moderately isolated mostly self-sufficient rural living that was common among rural Americans before the 20th century appeals to me about as much as a lengthy sentence in a maximum security prison.

In any case, the above article makes me wonder if the ideals of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency are in part responsible for the distrust of social welfare programs or public transportation. If so, then this becomes an ideology that I not only do not share, but also actively oppose. However, I have no data on whether there is any actual correlation between this ideology and an opposition to government programs designed to enhance the common good.

I also do not know if such attitudes are at all widespread outside of the US. I've never encountered them in any European discourse, but that may simply be that I haven't encountered them. Also, I think that I've seen something like this ideology among some Canadians, and yet Canada manages to be a significantly more humane nation than the US, so perhaps there is no actual correlation. I'd definitely appreciate learning more about the prevalence of such attitudes outside of the US.

Comments:

I think that the individuality-fetishism is part of it, but I too think that uglier things are behind the Tea Partiers. I tend to attribute a lot of weight to the feeling of looking at successful people who don't "deserve" their success. I think of that as a very widespread, very human failing, that kind of jealousy. I know that part of why George Bush has earned my eternal enmity is that he is safe and reasonably happy and secure, when he's a moral imbecile who has committed numerous crimes against humanity. Similarly, the Tea Partiers think that a variety of targets are enjoying good things in life that they don't deserve - except that in their case, it's pretty much all built on easily-pierced illusions. They're just more desperately held in thrall by that human failing, and are willing to believe all manner of idiotic things about vilified outsiders. I like Fred Clark's perspective, that they have made themselves stupid by believing evil, which is his answer to the "stupid or evil?" question.

True self-sufficiency involves fire-hardened spearpoints and/or chipping flint. It doesn’t generally correlate with a long life.

Margaret Thatcher is known for saying “There is no such thing as society.” This is patently false: all of our ape cousins live in societies, and we’ve lived in them longer than we’ve been modern humans. Even the so-very-idealized pioneers needed someone to dig iron ore out of the ground and smelt it for them to make the tools they used.

No, you can maintain self-sufficiency at a somewhat higher level than flint and fire. If you're willing to go to extended-family level, mediaeval-plus-gunpowder is achievable.

More to the point, the rugged self-sufficiency meme is a positive virtue if you're living in an isolated and simple agricultural community in the hinterlands of a continental empire; it's a positive liability if you live in a complex society with lots of interdependencies and no frontier to light out for. The USA has the foundational myth of the uninhabited frontier (not that it was uninhabited, just that the original owners were successfully expropriated) -- there have been no comparable uninhabited frontiers to settle in Europe for a very long time, Adolf Hitler's wishful thinking about lebensraum notwithstanding.

Canada, I should note, gets a lot weirder and more reactionary -- in line with the independence/autonomy meme -- the further west and north of Ontario you go, with the exception of Vancouver (a coastal city).

Finally, slothman, you're quoting Thatcher out of context. I don't like her, but I feel the need to set the record straight: by tea partier standards she's a raving commie -- here's the whole quote for you:

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

I much prefer "It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour." I'm not sure she meant it, but it's a far cry from the stance usually attributed to her by idiots like Sarah Palin.

It's been almost a century since there has been anything remotely like a frontier in the US, and yet the myth of the untamed frontier is still reflected in the desires of far too many people to inhabit isolated estates in far ex-urbs. I think part of the problem is the fact that in the mythic vision of the US cities are still corrupt pest holes, while this idea also seems to have thankfully vanished from almost all of Europe.

Oops: I said "a very long time". As the saying goes, "A European is someone who thinks a hundred miles is a long distance; an American is someone who thinks a century is a long time." I'm thinking in terms of millennia here.

Oh, and in the UK -- where I live -- less than 3% of the population live outside towns or cities. Compare with the USA which still has a double-digit rural population. More if you count the suburbs (American suburbs are frequently as lightly populated as European countryside).

Re: Some vaugely sorted thoughts

While all true, it's equally true that the total number of people living in such places in the US is fairly small. From what I've seen, the true hotbed of tea-bagger activity is the suburbs, where people often maintain that they are not urbanites, but where this protestation is merely a lie (or at least self-deception).

Re: Some vaugely sorted thoughts

I wonder how much the Tea Party is a creation of mainstream media. If Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, et. al. didn't ever give those people one iota of publicity, I don't think many people outside the movement would have ever heard of it.

Re: Some vaugely sorted thoughts

I think more of the publicity is coming from the far right news media. Glen Beck did a huge amount to popularize the "birthers", and both he and Rush Limbaugh are major forces behind the tea-baggers. If Olberman and Maddow vanished off the air, you'd still have Beck, Limbaugh, and others like them being the media arm of the tea-baggers.

I don't like to oversimplify, but if I could characterize the Tea Party with one basic failing, it would be: A misunderstanding of the nature of freedom. Jefferson romanticized the free farmer's life not because he was isolated, but because he was secure. Every successful advancement of freedom, whether the founding of the Republic, voting rights, the formation of workers' unions, and opposition to warrantless spying, came about as the result of engagement in the political process, not a retreat from public life. I am not free to eat an apple if I do not have one, nor may I bear arms if I am held without trial in a federal prison. There is no value in being free to be exploited by businesses with more expertise, naturally, in their business than a consumer possesses. In Texas, workers have the "freedom" to be let go at will by employers, and to lose food stamp benefits in a matter of months after this occurs. The Tea Party understands that the massing of power by an armed government is a potential threat to liberty, but they vastly underestimate the risks posed by enemy states, armed anarchy, corporations, plutocrats, and anonymous criminal activity.